Free Automobile Camping in Nevada City!
by
Bob Wyckoff
1920 AUTO CAMP entrance was on Coyote Street just behind the South Yuba Canal building which today is home to the Nevada City Chamber of Commerce.
n these times of exorbitant gasoline and motel room prices, official governmental-types are extolling the virtues of and imploring you to embrace stay-at-home style vacations. Pitch a tent in the backyard! We are reminded that “automobilists” of the 1920s, could do just that for free right here in downtown Nevada City and save a real pile of dough!
In the early 1900s, the automobile was looked upon as a questionable novelty. There were those who predicted that, ”It would never amount to anything,” “Too expensive to own and run,” they said: and it scared horses, they said.
Then along came Henry Ford and completely upset the apple cart. His assembly line method of manufacturing kept expenses way down and put the automobile within reach of “anyone who had a good job...” Prices fell as Henry’s Model “T” rolled off the assembly line in staggering numbers.
No longer was the automobile a toy for the rich; it was fast becoming a family necessity. The number of gas burners increased rapidly as did the miles of paved highways and city streets. Along about this time the ”autoist” dreaded roadsides posting, the speed limit signs, began to appear. America began to take the family vacation on The Road.
The world’s first motel was built in San Luis Obispo in 1925 by Arthur Heinman who invested some $80,000 in a pioneering venture and opened the Milestone Motel. The motel catered to an increasing number of automobilist traveling in both north and south along the old Royal Highway, the El Camino Real, that followed the chain of Spanish missions established in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Today that highway is US 101, and literally hundreds of motels line its entire length from Mexico to Canada all the way along America’s west coast.
Heinman originally wanted to call his hostelry the Milestone Motor Hotel but it wouldn’t fit on his sign so he simply used the first and last syllables of motor hotel and, viola, a word is born! However, before the early day auto-tourist found nightly shelter under a roof; he usually slept under the stars, either along the highway or he pitched tents at any one of many auto camps, forerunners of today’s RV parks.
Which brings us to 1919, and our story. In that year the Nevada City Chamber of Commerce, in tune with the times and ever observant of trends in tourism, okayed sponsoring and building an auto camp for Nevada City’s benefit. This camp was not the first, there were others throughout the state, but Nevada City’s was somewhat unique in that it was to be free, have cooking gas available for sale, boast hot running water and showers and the big feature--it was right downtown! It opened in June 1920, and was built, according to chamber figures at a cost of $660. Nevada City’s Mayor Emil J.N. Ott, he of the famous assaying family, was in charge of the project.
The Auto Camp was built on land loaned free to the chamber for that purpose by Pacific Gas and Electric. The park was located on Coyote street directly behind and north of the present South Yuba Canal building where Nevada City’s post office stands. Today. the land is bisected by the Golden Center Freeway which has also obliterated Manzanita Creek forcing an embarrassing greatly diminished flow into a concrete conduit. The camp was well landscaped “by nature,” with Manzanita Creek gently flowing at the rear of the park.Best description of Nevada City’s Free Auto Camping Park is from an account printed in a 1922, brochure: It (the park) is free to the automobilist. The only charge is 25¢ deposited in the slot for gas for cooking. The park itself is well patronized. Often as many as forty automobiles are camped there. The park has a free swimming pool, which is now well stocked with mountain trout (must have been quite an experience, swimming with nibbling pisces, that is). There are also...free tenting grounds, dining tables, shower baths for men and also women, rest rooms, toilets and an excellent sewerage system. Free gas stoves (pay for gas used) are provided, and also electric lights and free water. A natural spring furnish an abundance of the very best drinking water, which stands at a temperature at 51 degrees winter and summer. The grounds have fine trees, shrubbery and flowers; and the place is orderly and sanitarily kept...it has been pronounced most excellent by the State inspector, as to both cleanliness and sanitation.
As travelers became more jaded, auto camps gradually passed from the scene giving way to the more convenient motel rooms with their many amenities. Auto camping as practiced from the 1920s until after World War II, was replaced with what has developed into today’s all inclusive RV, the recreational vehicle or “the home away from home on wheels.” There are still state and private parks where a vacationing family either on a limited budget or with a desire to “rough it,” can sleep under the stars. The US Forest Service and the California State Park system maintain outdoor camp sites but by and large, auto camping as practiced by the likes of the Nevada City Free Auto Camp is history. Chamber of Commerce records that would have detailed the closing of the auto camp were inadvertently destroyed some time ago. (Published in The Union-Monday September 29,2008.)BOB WYCKOFF is a retired Nevada County newspaper editor/publisher and author of local history. His most recent work is “The Way It Was. Looking Back at Nevada County,” published by and available at The Union office, 464 Sutton Way, Grass Valley CA 95945. E-mail: bobwyckoff@sbcglobal.net, P.O. Box 216, Nevada City 95959.